Broken
by Yikiri
Summary: An introspective look into Ciel's tragic trials at the hands of the sick cult who took away his innocence. Characters and cover image (c) Toboso Yana


**Author's Note: **Hey, guys. Sorry for writing this instead of updating _Nightmare. _I think I needed a little break from it to get my ideas flowing (which was an epiphany that happened upon me at five in the morning as I frantically typed on the infuriating screen of my iTouch). Everything I was writing for chapter six was complete and utter crap. So, I figured the wait would be worth it if you all were able to get a solid chapter out of me. Hopefully, you can enjoy this fic, too, whilst you wait. This takes place during Ciel's imprisonment imposed by the cult, obviously inspired by chapter sixty-one and sixty-two of the manga. Since we're not given explicit details on the horrors he endured during that month, I thought I'd put forth my own ideas on this topic. I hope you'll all find it believable and in-character; but if not, I'd love to hear some feedback. Anyway, without further ado, I present _Broken. _

_Warnings: _Vague mention of and allusion to child abuse and molestation and somewhat graphic descriptions of gore.

* * *

Eventually, he had just given up.

It had been three days since he had last eaten. He was so hungry, he almost couldn't feel the pangs stabbing at his stomach.

Almost.

He knew only how many days had passed by the amount of children he had as companions in the barren metal cage in which he was imprisoned.

The numbers dwindled with every day that went by, each twenty-four hour span marked by the sacrifice of another innocent child. Their lives became the means of a new, inhuman calendar he was forced to utilize. He was told every day that he was too pretty to be sacrificed right away. It would be a shame to kill the life in those big eyes when they could be alight with pain and humiliation, they said. It was the eyes they went for the most often, which explained the blackened puffiness of the skin around his right eye. None of the other children were abused so callously; no, the child of the Earl Phantomhive was their favorite pet with whom they could have their fun.

Ciel found himself, with each brutal beating and molestation, wishing that he were the one bleeding from a fatal wound on that altar. He couldn't bear the sympathy of his fellow captives, for they knew only the fear of death and the pain of hunger. Ciel, however, knew what it was to be stripped of everything—his pride, his dignity, and his purity. He refused to beg anymore. Such practices were useless on the monsters who could put a child in that position in the first place.

He stopped talking to the other children after the first week. It was too much for him to watch the souls he knew and related to die on that cursed, blood-stained altar. It was so much easier to not allow himself to care. After all, the last time he cared for something, it was eaten up in the roar of vicious flames.

But that didn't mean that each scream he heard emanating from the center of the room didn't pierce his being with exact precision. It didn't mean that the leers on the cult members' faces didn't make him tremble with a fear he had never felt. Because he knew that no matter what he endured, that—there on that altar—was where he was going to end up.

He cursed his mother and father for dying. They were supposed to always protect him, like they promised when he had a nightmare. He was slowly forgetting their embrace, their warm caresses overridden by the feeling of greedy hands roaming his entire body and exacting screams of pain that sounded so inhuman, he hadn't realized he was the one producing them. By the time the third week was over, he stopped reacting.

Everything that the cult's members inflicted on him was taken in complete numbness, despite the tears that seemed to never cease in their flowing down his cheeks.

Finally, he was the last one in the cage, curled up pitifully—trying to achieve nightmare-ridden sleep to help him escape from the unbearable pain that caused an ever-present ache.

He was awakened to their idle chatter about the need to restock on their sacrifices if "this one" didn't do it. They had expended countless numbers of lives, but to no avail. They were no further in their journey than when they had begun. But that fact wasn't going to spare Ciel's life. It was only going to make him another worthless child with a pointless death. He could only smile at the irony. He, the future Queen's Watchdog, was going to die like this—at the hands of the very people his father had hunted tirelessly for Her Majesty.

His smile melted off his face as he watched in horror as the preparations for his death were made. His hands clutched the bars of his cage as tightly as his hunger-weakened body could manage. The cold metal dug into his hands and made them go numb—but he was far beyond noticing.

He wanted to go home.

He wanted to curl up between his parents in their bed at night with the excuse of having had a bad dream.

Above all, he wanted everything to _stop hurting._

He watched, petrified, as the malevolently smiling leader came toward his cage, the key swinging hypnotically—tantalizingly—from his fingers. Tears leaked from his glazed eyes, and he wanted so badly to run from the man who was going to kill him. But he couldn't move.

Suddenly, the man turned away from him, distracted by the cries of his fellows.

Ciel saw a black mass blooming up from the center of the altar; but somehow, the entity—despite its evident malignity—seemed less frightening than the other people in the room.

Two iniquitous, fuchsia eyes could be seen within the smoke-like substance, glowing eerily amidst the darkness. A wickedly smiling mouth was also visible—a thick, dark tongue passing sensually over shadowed lips.

Yet, despite the requests of the people crowding around the being, demanding eternal life and wealth, the demon's eyes were focused on a different person entirely.

They were fixed intently on _him_.

It told him how he knew of his sacrifice, and Ciel had no idea what he was talking about. He _wasn't_ lying on that altar yet—he _wasn't_ a sacrifice.

But from the cultists' requests before, the child knew that he could gain power from this demon; and, according to it, the payment had already been made for all his wishes to come to fruition. He needed to get out. He needed to be free. He needed the ones who did this to him—to all of them—to pay dearly.

And with his traitorous eyes still weeping incessantly, he screamed at the demon to make a contract with him. One of the other humans in the room instructed someone to shut him up, but no one moved. The boy, if not for his terror and trauma, would have smiled at their taste of being defenseless and scared. He ignored the bastards in the room with him, his crying eyes focusing determinedly on the creature of hell. When asked where he wanted the demon's seal to be made on his body, Ciel could only react with impatience. All he wanted was a power stronger than any other's.

And so, burned into his eye like the brand that still burned and itched on his lower back, was the mark of the contract that stole away his vision and replaced it with the shaded projection of a glowing pentagram.

Within minutes, his feet were squelching in the viscous blood flowing from his tormentor's bodies; but the sound, obviously sickening by description, had a connotative sound that was music to Ciel's ears. He relished the feeling of the liquid between his toes, inwardly smirking at the blood that had been spilled in the name of all the children who had been lost. They deserved it, after all—those who took it upon themselves to take away precious lives.

To rid the world of that scum was a cause for which he would gladly give his soul. And so he did.

The demon held his onyx hand out to him, which he took gratefully, his eyes still on his blood covered feet. He had finally stopped crying, and a part of him swore that this would be the last time he shed such craven tears. His downcast gaze rose as the demon asked him of his name; slightly bemused, he thought of how odd it was that he was introducing himself to a spawn of Hell. He paused for a moment, searching for the identity that had been stolen from him for an entire blood-soaked month.

"Ciel," he finally said in a voice trembling with pain and exhaustion to answer the creature before him. "Ciel Phantomhive. The one who will inherit the house of Earl Phantomhive."

The demon laughed, a harsh, dark sound. "I see. That'll be fine."

His voice changed with the next words spoken, transforming from the sinister drawl to a deep, nearly pleasant—but not quite—purr of a voice. "Then I should take a form suitable of being in service to an earl."

The loud clack of his stilettos against the unforgiving stone floor of the basement turned into a subdued tap of dress shoes as a tall and darkly handsome man came into his sight. "Well, then. Give me any order . . . my little lord."


End file.
